Your shuttle slowly rolls to the first lift and then climbs up into…a
meteor shower! The only light you see are the meteor trails, and in the
distance, you can hear the rumble of the shuttles ahead of you. A
second, longer lift then takes you up towards some mysterious lights.
You're almost there! The lights go out. As you reach the top of the
hill, the surrounding darkness begins to brighten as stars appear all
around. You slowly roll past a large satellite, and then at the top of
the last short lift…

"We have ignition…"

You quickly pick up speed as you rocket down the track. The rest of
your adventure becomes a blur of dizzying twists, turns and drops
through the darkness of space. Then, just as your shuttle begins to
reach top speed, you reach the "re-entry" tunnel and rapidly
slow down. The shuttle crawls back to the loading dock, and you realize
that it went by all too quickly. Luckily, you can head back to the end
of the line for another adventure as soon as you get out of your
shuttle! (At least that's what I do!)

The ride description probably sounds more familiar if you have been
on the Anaheim or Tokyo versions of Space Mountain. However, if you have
been on any of the four Space Mountains in the world (including
Paris and Florida), you're familiar with the excitement and fun that
Disney park guests have been experiencing for decades. If you haven't
experienced "Space", give it a try, and hopefully, you'll get
hooked! Space Mountain might not be the fastest, scariest, or most
amazing roller coaster in the world, but it's a wonderfully themed
coaster with a style all its own. In fact, the Space Mountains at
each park have individual styles that set them apart both from each
other, and from all other roller coasters.

Part I of this series focuses on the history of Space Mountain, and
the technological developments that led up to its creation. The second
part of the article covers details about the Space Mountain in Anaheim
(cool photos and everything…), as well as specifics about the other
three versions. There's a lot of stuff to cover, so get comfy and make
sure your lap bar is secure! Here we go!

A Bit of Disney History…To See
How Space Mountain Developed

The original Space Mountain opened at Walt Disney World (WDW) in 1975
as Florida's indoor version of Disneyland's Matterhorn Bobsled (with
outer space themeing, of course). Back then, this was the world's first
all-indoor coaster, and the first to be completely in the dark! While
the attraction was built with two separate tracks inside the huge
building, the seating in the cars itself was single-file with three
riders in the first car and three in the second (a lot like the
Matterhorn Bobsleds, but without sitting in somebody's lap!).

Because of its success in Florida, Disneyland opened a more compact,
longer, single-track version in 1977. This new version was designed to
be faster, handle more people, and have a completely different track
layout than the WDW version. Then in 1983 when Tokyo Disneyland opened,
a third Space Mountain (almost identical to the Disneyland version) was
introduced.

And finally, three years after opening Euro-Disneyland, the fourth
version was opened there in 1995. What set the Paris version apart from
all the others are the catapult launch, a loop and a corkscrew!
This one is also the fastest in the Space Mountain range, but we'll get
to that later…

A lot of people have written about the history of the Space Mountains
attraction. Check the reference section at the end of the article for a
couple of great resources.

A Bit of Coaster History…To See
How Technology Developed Roller Coasters

Before the 1960s, roller coasters were huge wooden structures with
laminated wood tracks and flat steel rails (see picture below). The cars
ran on steel wheels for durability, and usually only one
"train" (a group of cars) could be on the track at one time
(to prevent crashes). Wooden coasters were big, rough and noisy, and
limited to dips and turns. Keeping the coasters in good condition for
extended periods of time was difficult and expensive because the wood
would rot or get eaten by bugs! Now, don't get me wrong. They were, and
still are, a blast. In fact, some of the current wooden coasters on the
West Coast, like Ghostrider at Knott's Berry Farm or Colossus at Six
Flag's Magic Mountain, are still a lot of fun, and I'm sure there
are many other favorites out there.

Typical wooden track and steel
wheel set-up for the old wooden coasters.

But there's only so much that can be done with wood, so along came…
Steel.

Typical steel coaster set-up.

Quick question: What was the first roller coaster in the
United States to use steel tubing for track rails and supports? No, it
wasn't Space Mountain. It was actually Disneyland's Matterhorn Bobsleds!
(I will cover it in a future article.)

What's the big deal with steel
tubing?

Here's a list of some of the big advantages:

Steel doesn't rot, so maintenance is easier and less expensive

Tubing can be bent and shaped in ways that are impossible with
wood

Steel is much stronger than wood, so support structures
can be smaller

Steel provides a consistently smooth surface for wheels, so
noise is reduced

Ok, so steel tubing makes great
track, but what about the wheels that run on it?

The old wood coasters used steel wheels, but steel wheels on steel
track make a lot of noise and the ride is rough. You might guess that
rubber tires (like those on a car or bike) would reduce the noise and
work pretty well, but that kind of rubber wouldn't last very long on
coaster wheels - it would just fall apart!

Do you have a pair of in-line skates or a skateboard? Take a look at
the wheels: they're the same kind of material currently used on coaster
wheels. For most of these wheels, the material is a "polymer"
(giant molecules made up of a lot of smaller, identical molecules -
plastics are a good example) called "polyurethane".

When made into wheels, polyurethane is usually pretty hard, but it
has enough "give" or squishiness to act like rubber. Also,
polyurethane can handle much higher temperatures and stresses (from the
"friction" or contact between the wheel and the steel tubing)
than the kind of rubber used in car or bike tires. So in the end,
polyurethane gives us roller coaster wheels that are quiet, smooth and
very durable. The figure below shows a typical current roller coaster
wheel.

Current design for roller coaster
wheels.

The last of the major coaster improvements really has to do with
increasing the number of people that can enjoy a coaster at the same
time…we wouldn't want the cars or trains to crash into each other,
would we?

Question: How would
you keep one "train" or set of cars from running into
another, if they were both rolling around on one track at the same
time?

Answer: You could just
wait until the first train reaches a point on the track that the
second could never catch up.

That works for many coasters that only have one or two large trains.
But what if you throw ten to 12 separate small trains on one
track (like at Disneyland's Space Mountain)…How are you going to
handle that?

I know this article is about Space Mountain, but I'll quickly mention
another "Matterhorn Milestone" - the Matterhorn was the first
coaster to use the "block-zone system" that allows more than
train on a coaster track at a time.

What's a block-zone system?

Imagine a long track divided into lots of small sections, or
"block zones." Each zone is connected to a sensor that
monitors exactly which zones the trains are on at any given moment.
Several of these zones also have brakes on them. These zones, called
"brake zones," can be controlled by the monitoring system. The
sensing system is programmed to keep the cars a certain number of zones
apart from each other. If one train gets too close to another, the
system applies the brakes in the brake zones, causing a cascade of
trains slowing down until all of them are safely stopped. This doesn't
happen a lot, but when you're told the ride has "temporarily broken
down," there's a pretty good chance that it was due to a cascade.

Once all the cars are stopped, they are removed from the track, one
by one, to the storage area "backstage" (an area outside of
the view of guests). Then, the trains are slowly put back on the track.
Be patient: This whole process takes quite a bit of time!

What does all this have to do with
Space Mountain?

Well, by the late 1960s to early 1970s, steel tube track,
polyurethane or nylon (another polymer) wheels, and block-zone systems
had become the best new way to build roller coasters. As I mentioned,
the Disney Imagineers wanted to build a space-themed roller coaster in
Florida, but it had to be indoors for it to operate throughout the year.
Since the entire roller coaster was going to be enclosed in a building
and needed to handle thousands of people a day, the new technology was
very important:

The polyurethane wheels - the ride had to be relatively
quiet and smooth to give the feeling of gliding through space.

The steel tubing - the support structures and tracks had
to be tightly twisted to fit inside of the building.

The block zones - the original WDW trains only carry six
people, so a lot of trains need to be on the tracks at the same time
to handle the large number of riders.

In the next article
you'll see that the basic technology behind all of the versions of Space
Mountain is pretty much the same, but they all have little details that
set them apart from each other... and have I got some neat stuff to show
you!